Solar Halos: Solar Halos

Rippling desert psych from the far edge of the mind

Hailing from Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Solar Halos – like their fellow residents (and the former home for two members) Horseback – are spiritually wedded to the deserts far to the west of them, sounding like a peyote cult calling out their surroundings until they effect a rite of transformation.

Musically, this isn’t an untrodden path, and across these six tracks of vision-invoking doom/psych you can hear strains of Horseback’s rolling, enlightenment-seeded groove, Om’s mantric, unblinking pulse and even a bit of Kylesa’s restless will to transcendence. But this three-piece sound as though they’re fully in control of their own destiny, locked around the twin vocals of Nora Rogers and Eddie Sanchez, each taking turns to chant visionary sermons as if their consciousness is being flooded with sensation.

The Vast White Plains charges its bristling riffs until they’re ready to ascend to a higher state, Wilderness’s exhausted reverie turns your mind into camera film exposed to the sun and Solar Halos prove
as expansive as a head about to burst.